Continuing the Journey Through the FIE Bookshelf—1971-2005

Abstract

In 1971, about 100 engineering educators from industry and academia gathered in Atlanta for the first Frontiers in Education (FIE) conference. Its leaders had a vision, and moved creatively to implement the vision. The journey through the conferences, which we call FIE, is worth documenting, as the conference has become a premier and often-imitated conference. Some educators have been involved right from the beginning and continue. Others have disembarked, but many new contributors have joined. This paper will document some data and will also be an attempt to study the impact of the conference on engineering and computing education over the last 35 years. What issues have been resolved? What new issues have emerged? What issues continue? What might emerge in the future? Of necessity it will contain personal observations. The paper is an update of a similarly named paper published at the 2000 FIE.

A keyword based scheme to define engineering education research as a field and its members

“…For instance, the Educational Research Methods (ERM) division of the ASEE formed in the late 1960s and its Distinguished Lecturer series commenced in 1980. The Frontiers in Education conference was initiated by the IEEE Education Society in 1971 and the ERM division of ASEE became a co-sponsor of FIE events in 1973 [20].…”